Changing SPAlert EventType

So i was  trying to edit all the web alerts to be triggered only when and item is modified instead of being sent if any changes happen to a list like add edit, delete etc..

But guess what … the normal SharePoint API doesn’t work for that … it changes it in the object model and you can see it in the SharePoint manager that it is changed

Still the user gets the alerts whenever any new item is added to the list, which drove me crazy some long couple of search hours, I found that blog post

And here is the explanation and right way of doing it

The EventType property, this didn’t work out the way I wanted it too. I was having a problem with setting the EventType on an SPAlert to SPEventType.Add.

My code wouldn’t throw an error but neither would it set the EventType to SPEventType.Add, instead it would stay at SPEventType.All.

I fixed this by using the following codes to set the "eventtypeindex" property of the SPAlert:

all = 0

added = 1

modify = 2

deleted = 3

web discussions = 4

web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;

StreamWriter file = new System.IO.StreamWriter(AlertReportPath, true);

foreach (SPAlert alert in web.Alerts)

    {

        try

        {

            if (alert.Status == SPAlertStatus.On)

            {

                //alert.EventTypeBitmask = 2;

                //alert.EventType = SPEventType.Modify;

                alert.Properties["eventtypeindex"] = "2";

                alert.Update(false);

            }

        }

        catch(Exception ex)

        {

            Logger.logEntry("ProActive.SharePoint.CmdTool.Tasks", "EditAlerts", "failed to edit web alert", ex, EventLogEntryType.Error);

            Console.WriteLine("editing web alerts failed : " + web.Url + ex.Message + "n");

        }

    }

file.Close();

web.Update();

web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;

It is a known issue so keep this in mind next time you are editing a list alert item.